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Dear Indiespensable subscribers,
Have you tasted the chocolate yet?
What are you waiting for? Never mind this post; we won't be offended. True, a cup of coffee would indeed complement those delectables. Or a glass of red wine. My, what patience you have! The samples in our office disappeared faster than it's taken to type this paragraph.
Oh, but there are books in the box, too.
Christine Gillespie at Knopf told Dave about Sunnyside way back in October. She gave him a manuscript and shared Glen's idea for turning the novel's first section into the colorful, custom hardcover in your possession. (Careful of smearing that chocolate.)
We loved Glen's idea (and his novel), but we figured that subscribers should hear about his thought process, too. So we asked him: Could you give our readers that same background? And he did.
However, it would be unfair to send you just a tease of the full novel, we decided. Hence the advance reader's copy — in your hands more than a month before the novel's publication!
But back to the chocolate. Sarah Hart, the proprietor of Alma Chocolate, is the chocolatier. She's one of our favorite people in Portland; surely we don't need to explain why. We told her about Sunnyside, and she came up with the idea of a custom chocolate with stencils of Chaplin. Now you probably love her, too.
And Amplified — well, that one is right up our alley. Jon Langford! Laura Veirs! Chris Smither! We knew the folks at Melville House put out some great books, but we may have to recalculate their cool quotient after this one.
Enjoy!